Page 258 of Interion

I set the dry petals beside me and turned the bird over the fire. My ally leaned back against a tree and let her shoulders relax. She was looking better, and part of me felt relieved—two days without water or food would drive anyone half-crazy. Adele was my partner; she needed to stay healthy to finish the test. While the bird roasted, I studied the Yonserian’s face, streaked with dried blood. I got up and sat down next to her, which made her frown and scoot away.

“Turn your face toward me,” I said gently.

“Going to kiss me?” She winked at me. “I know you still remember my lips, but it was just one night for me—don’t take it personally.”

I rolled my eyes, wanting to chop her into pieces and roast her alongside the bird.

“Let me see your nose. Adrian broke it—I just want to check if the cartilage is in place.”

“He didn’t break it, just banged it up and burst some blood vessels.” Adele stood up and moved away from me, pretending to check on the bird.

“Don’t act tough. I heard the crack—I just want to make sure it’s set properly. You want a crooked nose after the test?”

I chased her around the fire, and she glared at me like she wanted to smash my face in.

“It’s not broken.”

“Yes, it is. I saw how much it bled.”

Thinking back, Adele’s nose had bled a lot when it broke, but it had stopped bleeding long before my eyebrow did.

“It’s. Not. Broken!” Her eyes told me clearly that there was something more going on.

Suddenly, my mind started connecting the dots. I looked at her hands—they didn’t have any marks from the fire thorn. I raised my own hands and saw that I still had a red stripe from the injury on the first day. That burn should have stung and left a mark for at least three days.

Then it finally clicked. I opened my mouth to say something but shut it again. A drone was perched nearby, and the forest was full of listening devices. If I weren’t so dehydrated, I’d be sweating bullets.

“Yeah, it’s not broken after all—just a hit that made it bleed,” I lied as I sat down, a bit dazed, turning the bird so I wouldn’t have to show my face to the cameras.

She sat down on the other side, equally quiet and alert.

How was this possible? The nurse had injected the blockers, and bypassing that medication should have been impossible. This must be why Adele kept getting knocked around and yet kept walking like she wasn’t hurt. Because she wasn’t.

“In the old days, the Drute peoples believed birds were sacred and magical because they could fly,” I said, still not looking at her. “No one understood how wings worked, and they never managed to copy their movements. If it was supposed to be impossible, how could a bird have magic, right?”

The smell of roasting meat made my stomach growl. With my face still lowered, Adele lifted her eyes to me, and a cynical smile spread across her lips.

“I’d say the wings aren’t magical. Maybe some internal organ was modified to support flight, and they’re just looking in the wrong place. Maybe no one’s seen the modified organ, and now the bird is in trouble because it never expected this either.”

A light bulb went off in my head. I remembered the day at the cliff: I had enlarged and strengthened her liver to flush out the absurd amount of morphine in her system. What was a little blocker compared to that? Her liver must have eliminated most of the drug over those two days, and her gift was already active. This meant Adele could be disqualified if anyone found out. And I, as her ally, would go down with her. With trembling hands, I grabbed a skewer, and the Yonserian grabbed another.

“The bird should stop flying so it doesn’t get discovered and have its wings ripped off,” I whispered.

She looked at me while tearing off a chunk of meat with her teeth.

“The bird doesn’t know how to suppress flight, but maybe no one will notice if the other bird keeps its beak shut.”

Oh, gods… Adele couldn’t suppress the gift that was mending her body bit by bit. I scratched my forehead, unsure what to do about the situation, but decided to drop the subject. We needed to finish the test without her getting hurt, or people would notice the truth.

“Do you know him?” the girl asked after long minutes during which the only sound was our teeth gnawing on the bird’s bones.

I blinked, surprised by the question, and it took me a moment to understand. But from the sadness in her eyes, I figured she was talking about Serguei.

“I do.”

Adele bit her upper lip and lowered her eyes to the ground, looking uncomfortable with the subject.

“Tell him that… I appreciate what he did for me.”